Gathered
by beisel76
Summary: While celebrating Robert and Gina's 300th anniversary, friends and lovers conpire to force the Ryan-Grace family to talk to each other. And who knew Haresh had a fiance? Oubliette misuse, implied abuse, light swearing and awkward family conversations.


Author's Note : 

To begin, I would like to thank everyone who faved, reviewed, or read any of my other highlander fics. You remind me that people do read this, and therefore prevent me from forgetting about it, and in doing that, you keep me doing what I love! So, in a nutshell, you guys are awesome!

Also, I would like to apologize for the length of this one. I tried to cut it down into chapters, but it ended up even more disconnected than it already is, so I decided to leave it as one big chunk. Again, sorry about that. I'll do better next time.

Also, this is not the final installment of this series, in fact I am no where near done writing about Kleo and the other immortals, so keep your eyes peeled. Once that story is posted I will add a notice to the end of this letting you guys know.

**Disclaimer:**

**Lao Ma and Akemi are from Xena: Warrior Princess. They do not belong to me. The only characters who do belong to me are Neil, Flynn, Shane, and Kleo. Everyone else is from highlander and are therefore the property of Davis/Panzer productions and the creations of G. Widen.**

Richie had never been to a wedding, at least, not that he could remember. He wasn't too anxious to go to one either, but between Carter and Duncan, there was absolutely no way he could back out of it. So there he was, back in Paris, surrounded by more friends than he could count.

He supposed that the worst thing would be being surrounded by a bunch of immortals that he didn't know, and that his brothers would be there. He could feel the color rise into his cheeks as he recalled all of the gawking onlookers from their childhood. They would be asked a million times if they were related, and then would have to sit through a million dialogues filled with awkward references to their similarities and of course, their differences.

What Richie was really dreading though, was introducing his brothers to Carter. Not that he didn't love Carter. He _really_ loved Carter. He just didn't want to see the looks on his brothers faces when he addressed Carter as his boyfriend, much less his steady boyfriend.

Methos had told him to settle down and quit worrying about it. He kept saying that he had nothing to worry about, and would then leave the conversation at that, refusing to give the youngest Ryan sibling any details. Richie wanted desperately to take the words as the comfort they were meant to be, but years of drifting and thieving had ingrained mistrust and fear in him. If he ever had a CAT scan, they would probably find the word _paranoid_ seared into his brain like a cattle brand.

"Why do I have to wear this thing?" he asked Carter as he carried their suits across their room and into the closet.

The Valicourts were hosting the reception and after party in their extravagant manor roughly twenty miles from Paris. All of their wedding guests were staying for the weekend in their large home. That left Richie with hardly anything to do but eat, sleep, and be forced to socialize with other immortals. He shuddered at the thought as he flung his suitcase on the floor beside the bed.

He was sure that the fact that Angelina Valicourt had known to give them a single bed contributed to his mortification.

"Because it's a wedding, and that means you have to look presentable." Carter said with mock exasperation as he placed his hygiene supplies in a neat little row on the bathroom counter.

"Yeah, but you said this would be fine for the reception." Richie indicated a suit hanger bearing slacks, a button down shirt, and a tie that he would never have picked out himself. It was all Carter's fault.

"Yes, for the reception. This is going to be like an old-fashioned wedding Love. That means that first there will be brunch, then the men and women will split up to help the bride and groom, and then we'll go over to the church. Once that's over, we'll go to the reception."

"And that's tomorrow?" Richie clarified.

"Yes." Carter answered. "Tonight is more of an engagement party." Carter explained.

He took a towel off the rack in their bathroom, and with a graceful flick of his wrist, swatted Richie's ass with it. The redhead yelped, and turned around to face his lover with a scornful glare.

"What was that for?" he demanded.

"How am I supposed to face your brothers with you looking so unkempt? They'll never let me near you again." Carter said as he continued delivering playful blows to Richie's rear.

"I doubt they care that much, and even if they did, they don't get that kind of say in my life."

Richie began to strip, peeling his jeans and his t-shirt off his body and letting them pool on the cold tile floor. Carter gazed upon his lover's toned body admiringly as the redhead turned the faucet on to shower.

"You know, I should get in there with you, just to make sure you get all the dirt off. It is my reputation on the line after all." Carter said, as he too began to vest himself of his clothing.

Richie laughed, and moved backwards, further into the shower stall, to allow Carter room to join him. They managed to stay on task, for the most part, and digressed relatively few times from their goal of getting Richie supremely clean.

"Really though, you should have mentioned_ three_ _older brothers_ Richie." Carter told him later as he toweled off his blonde curls.

"Look, I know when you were my age siblings were like that, but _we_ aren't, so quit whining." Richie told him firmly. He wasn't angry or upset even, just a tiny bit annoyed at this boyfriend for misinterpreting his relationship with his brothers.

"Richie," Carter said in a chastising tone as he wrapped his arms around his red-haired lover from behind. "If you and your brothers didn't care that much about each other, you wouldn't be so anxious to track down your sister. Baby Brothers are no different than Baby sisters."

"Call me Baby one more time…" Richie said menacingly.

Carter kissed him, turning his head to allow him better access to the younger immortal's mouth. The blonde slid his tongue past Richie's lips, and stroked the roof of his mouth tenderly before breaking the kiss. While Richie caught his breath, he strode across the room and tossed Richie's clothes to him. Then, before returning to the closet to get his own clothes, he focused his smoldering gaze on his blushing lover.

"Baby."

Richie couldn't bring himself to be even a little annoyed as he donned his blue slacks and crème polo. A very small part of him, the part that still believed in hope and wishes and dreams coming true, sided with Carter on the issue of his brothers. It had been a longtime since people cared about him, and while he was happy with his friends and Carter, he didn't want the list to stop growing or get shorter.

Steven was busily introducing Shane to all of his many acquaintances that had come to France to witness Robert and Gina's third wedding. The guests list was shorter than it had ever been, a miserable sign that the time of the gathering was indeed coming. Taking a short break from the greetings, Steven and Shane walked over to the tables containing drinks and food.

"Holding up well?" Steven asked his lover.

"Better than I expected." Shane answered. Steven beamed at him, and took a moment to gloss his fingers over the blonde's hand.

"I told you it would be fun. I still need to introduce you to Sean though, and a few others."

"Is this like a class reunion for you? When else do we all get together like this?" Shane asked him out of burning curiosity.

"Never really. I suppose that's why everyone looks forward to Robert and Gina's wedding. Do you see anyone you know?"

Shane never answered. He was staring across the room to the grand staircase, which led up to the bedrooms all of the guests were staying in for the weekend festivities. Four beautiful women had just descended the stairs.

All three had glistening black hair, and they walked with elegance and grace. Two were Asian, but they looked nothing alike apart from their ebony hair and matching eye color. The older-looking one had her hair tied back into a neat bun, and she had a regal air about her. She looked regal too, in her gold dress and matching pumps.

The other Asian woman looked as if she had been about twenty when she had died. Her hair was perfectly straight, and her blunt bangs covered all of her forehead and only just missed covering her eyes. She seemed more humble in her appearance and gait, and her dress was more modest around her chest than the other woman's was. It was a pale blue sheath dress, the hem of which came just an inch or two below her knees.

Both of these women walked on either side of a young girl, a pre-immortal. She had her long black curls tied back and in hundreds of tiny braids. This girl's eyes were pure blue, and she wore an a-line dress the color of lilac blossoms. Shane was surprised to see that the dress was sleeveless and with a deep square neckline; the smooth, tanned skin they revealed bore no reminders of the burns that he had last seen on it.

"Should I be jealous?" Steven asked him jokingly as he followed the younger immortal's gaze to the three women.

"Hell no." Shane answered. "Do you know who those two women are?" he asked, his eyes trained on the one whose name he already knew.

"The older one is Lao Ma, and the one in blue is Akemi. They're quite fun really. They own a traditional Chinese antique store, a tea house, and a dance studio."

"Do they have any kids?" He wanted to know what his sister was to them before he immersed himself in the situation.

"God No! I can't imagine any child raised by Lao Ma being sane! They have a pre-immortal student though, a teenage girl. I can't remember her name though. Katherine? Karen? Kara? Kelly?"

"Kleo." Shane interrupted him.

Steven immediately turned to look at his lover's eyes, which were still focused on the girl walking between Akemi and Lao Ma. He turned his gaze back to the girl in the purple dress, memorizing the similarities. He couldn't believe he hadn't noticed her; the eyes should have been a dead giveaway. Steven turned back to Shane, grabbing his hand and squeezing it firmly.

"She'll run if she feels cornered." He cautioned.

"And if we don't catch her now we never will. We've found absolutely no trace of her since Philadelphia, and neither Joe nor Methos is helping." The last part of his sentence was positively venomous, as he recalled the way both watchers had refused to give them Kleo's whereabouts.

"Look," Steven said firmly as he gripped Shane even tighter to keep him from rushing in head-first. "I'm a good friend of her teachers; I'll go introduce you and then they'll introduce her."

"What the hell will that accomplish?" Shane demanded, trying again to take a step towards the three women.

"It's a start." Steven answered. He was leaving bruises on Shane's wrist, he was sure. "Besides, Lao Ma's no fool. She researched your sister before taking her under her wing, have no doubt of it. I'd wager they brought her, expecting you and your brothers to be here."

Shane shook his head as if to clear of the speeding thoughts burning rubber through it. Then he nodded firmly, and relaxed his muscles as a sign of ascent to Steven's plan. The other immortal released him, but placed his arm around the small of his back, but the gesture was more for emotional support than anything else though.

They strode across the decorative marble floor of the ballroom together, both anxious. Shane had a nagging suspicion that Steven was correct about everything he had just said, which only irked him. He hated it when Steven was right, because it usually meant that he was wrong. They got within ten feet before the older Asian woman – Lao Ma – noticed them approaching.

Shane fought the urge to quicken his pace; Kleo could still escape into a chatting cluster of other immortals at this distance. He shook his head; he was hunting her like an animal, not like the concerned older brother he so desperately wanted to be.

"Steven! It's so good to see you!" Lao Ma greeted her old friend as they embraced in a firm hug. Shane was surprised; Steven wasn't one for public displays of affection.

"How long has it been?" Akemi asked him as she too enveloped him in a hug.

"Too long." Steven replied after they had broken apart. Then he turned to the blonde standing beside him. "Shane, this is Lao Ma, and this is Akemi. They've been friends of mine for a few centuries." Then he turned to the two women, "This is my student; Shane Ryan."

Shane shook their hands eagerly and firmly, but his eyes kept drifting to Kleo. She regarded him coolly, not letting anything show through her mask apart from calm courtesy and a bright smile hindered by lips that refused to part.

"Pleasure to meet you Shane." Akemi said. She was naturally sweet, not laying it on like some of the other women Steven had introduced him to in their time together.

"I see you've added to your house as well." Steven said as he nodded in Kleo's direction.

It was almost humorous, how both women put an arm around the teenager and leveraged her forward. It wasn't too obvious though. If Steven hadn't known a thing or two about pressure points – and Lao Ma's extensive knowledge of them – he would have thought that the girl moved solely of her own power.

"Steven Keane" he offered his had to shake, and she took it with a firm grip. "Pleased to meet you."

"Kleo Grace." She replied with a smile. "Likewise Mr. Keane."

Then the two siblings turned to each other. Neither could think of anything appropriate to say to the other, and their teachers could feel the conversation spiraling downwards at a breakneck speed.

"Kleo, where are the rest of your siblings?" Akemi asked, desperate to salvage the encounter. Shane felt quite chagrined as he tallied another point for Steven. He had indeed been correct about the women fore-arming themselves with information on his family.

"No clue." She answered, still managing to keep her tone impartial.

"I would text them, but _he_-" Shane indicated Steven, "Wouldn't let me take my phone."

Lao Ma and Akemi burst into smiles and laughter. They gripped Kleo tighter, hugging her merrily between the two of them.

"I have hers." Lao Ma said, "And her friends caught on eventually that it wasn't her replying."

"They probably think she's been kidnapped by a psychopath, from your replies." Akemi joked, but part of what she said was true, Steven had no doubt. Lao Ma did have a strange sense of humor sometimes.

"I'm sorry, but what else do you call this?" Kleo asked, not really joking at all.

The round of laughter that they all broke into after that somehow managed to cover the tension crackling in the air. Lao Ma and Akemi both felt Kleo relax just a little bit, and breathed twin sighs of relief.

"When did you get in?" Steven asked, trying to maintain the conversation.

"Just a few hours ago." Lao Ma answered.

While they continued chatting idly with each other while occasionally sliding their eyes to make sure that their students were still there, a few more familiar faces caught sight of them. Sean Burns was exuberant as always, and Neil struggled to keep up with him as he led them across the ballroom to where Steven was. Gregory Powers wasn't far behind either. He was talking with Macleod, and he had his arm curled around Flynn's back.

Despite telling himself that he wasn't going to lose sight of Kleo, Shane found himself desperately searching for her roughly ten minutes later. He had gotten caught up in the introductions, and apparently so had Neil and Flynn, because they were struggling to keep up with him as he walked briskly out of the ballroom. He was starting to think that they might have been worse influences on her than he had previously thought.

"I cannot believe this!" he fumed.

"I can." Neil muttered.

"Shut up." Shane snapped, creating an infinitesimally small interlude in his impending rant. "How does she do that? I really want to know! There's three of us and one of her – surely it can't be so hard to keep track of one teenage prepubescent girl!" he continued.

"I'm pretty sure she's hit puberty Shane, unlike you." An as of yet bodiless voice interrupted them.

All three brothers stopped, though the rate at which Shane's face turned purple should have qualified it as a motion. The blotchy, angry color seemed to distort his face. Flynn was the first to catch sight of the unwelcome intruder upon their conversation, and was absolutely ecstatic. Shane however, continued to turn colors until he bypassed purple and settled on blue.

"Richie!" Flynn exclaimed.

"When did you get here man?" Neil asked; he was just as excited as Flynn about seeing their youngest brother. Meanwhile, Shane's complexion began a slow descent back into the spectrum of normal skin tone.

"About seven hours ago. If you're looking for Kleo, she's in the library."

"How do you know that?" Shane demanded.

"Duh, I asked the Asian chick she came in with – the younger one. She said Kleo had a bunch of homework to do, and some research for the Watchers."

"And?" Neil asked.

"Let's go talk to her, now." Shane commanded.

The words sent the three oldest Ryan brothers hurdling up the winding staircase. Before Richie could voice his objection to Shane's plan (or lack thereof, to be honest), his siblings had streaked by him as barely-visible immortal blurs of business casual threads.

"Guys," he called out as he caught up with them. "Don't you remember the last time we tried this?"

"Yeah - the hotel in Philly." Shane answered with a nonchalant shrug.

"And what happened at the hotel in Philly?" Richie asked in a tone he previously thought was reserved for small children in need of enlightenment.

"She gave us the slip." Flynn supplied.

"Exactly my point; if we corner her, she'll just bolt again, and we'll be back to square one."

"I've got a plan Richie. You'll see." Shane assured him.

"Let me get this straight." Richie said somewhat huffily as he walked back down the staircase to the ballroom just an hour later. "Your plan was to corner her in the library and wing it from there?"

"In a nutshell." Shane replied sheepishly. His face had begun the process of changing colors again; he was stuck somewhere between crimson and puce.

"Any ideas where she went?" Neil asked. "Maybe Akemi lied. Has that occurred to anyone?"

"I don't think so. She probably just-"

Flynn never finished his sentence. The four brothers rounded the corner and walked over the elaborate threshold separating the ballroom from the main hall, and knew exactly where there sister had gone. She had never left the ballroom. All four of the Ryan brothers took a moment to mentally slap themselves for never really confirming that she had in fact left.

"I'm this close," Neil demonstrated with his thumb and fore finger held roughly an inch apart, "to giving up."

"No way." Shane and Richie said simultaneously. "She's our sister, and we're not quitting."

Flynn and Neil nodded half-heartedly, and went off to join their respective lovers at opposite ends of the ballroom. Richie continued to stare at the beautiful ornamentation all around him from floor to ceiling until he felt a hand on his shoulder.

"There you are! I've been waiting for you to reappear."

Richie turned to face Carter quickly, practically spinning on his heel. He had expected Carter to stick with Haresh while he had been gone, but he couldn't see their housemate anywhere.

"Where's the old man?" Richie inquired as Carter led him by the hand back in the direction he had just come from.

"You mean Methos?" Carter asked.

"No, I meant Haresh; and where the hell are you taking me?"

Carter answered him with a laugh. That gave Richie absolutely no comfort, and neither did the devilish smile that remained plastered to Carter's face. Devilish, he supposed, was not the right word to use; satanically evil might have been more accurate.

"Oh! You don't know! I forgot that you weren't even around then… Long story short, Haresh has a fiancé that he hasn't seen in 600 years."

"Talk about a long engagement." Richie joked.

"Really. Things got a little…stagnant after he got too obsessed with the game, but if you ask me, sparks are flying."

"Well it's only been _600 years_. " Richie answered sarcastically.

"And as for where I am taking you…" Carter trailed off rather suspiciously.

Richie started looking for cues at that point. They had descended three levels of stairs, and the further they went on down the long hall, the colder, darker, and damper the atmosphere became. When Richie saw the rustic suits of armor and the solid iron doors at the very end of the long hallway, the gravity of the situation hit him full on in the face. They were going to the dungeon.

When he felt Carter's hand at the small of his back, he attempted to stop dead in his tracks; unfortunately, he had been wrong about going to the dungeon. He caught an apology from Carter that was hindered by a fit of shuddering laughter from the same source, and then he saw absolutely nothing except for the light of the hall and stone ceiling growing distant at an alarmingly rapid rate.. He felt as if the floor had given way, but he could neither confirm nor deny the theory until his eyes adjusted to the darkness that engulfed him.

"Who's there?" he heard a familiar voice call out into the darkness.

"Kleo? Is that you?" he asked the bodiless voice.

"Yeah. Are you okay?"

"I'm fine. What about you?" he queried.

"Just peachy, except for the part about my Stepsister shoving me into a hole."

"Join the club." Two more voices rang out through the darkness.

"Flynn, Neil? Is that you?" Shane inquired.

"Who else super genius?" Neil replied in a voice that was positively dripping with sarcastic venom.

"Okay, any ideas why we're stuck down here?" Kleo asked the group.

They heard the sound of a zipper being tugged, and then rummaging. Kleo cursed softly, and then made a small noise of triumph a second later. The next thing the four brothers knew, a brilliant light was shining from across the tiny chamber.

"Good thing I don't need reception to use the flashlight on my phone." Kleo murmured.

"Great, now let's get out of here." Shane said.

He turned around and started examining the walls, and craning his head to peer at the very dark and very distant ceiling. Flynn and Neil joined him a moment later, but they stopped when Kleo interrupted them. She had been doing some investigating of her own, and Richie had been observing her very closely. His stomach sank into his feet when he saw a very severe frown fly across her painted lips.

"Guys, this is an oubliette."

"So?" Neil asked.

"An oubliette is where you shove a prisoner when you have no more use for them – it's a dark, drawn-out, and premature grave." She elaborated.

"What's your point?" Flynn asked her. He continued running his hands along the wall, as if looking for a switch of some sort.

"She's saying there isn't a way out." Richie summarized, sparing his stubborn sister the frustration of dealing with their equally stubborn brothers.

"So what the hell are we supposed to do?" Neil demanded. His voice lilted a bit, exposing his anxiety at being trapped in the dark.

"Isn't it obvious?" Kleo asked them. "Someone brought you all down here right?"

They all nodded, and even in the dim light provided my Kleo's cellphone, it was possible to make out more than one bitter grin.

"I'm guessing this is a tactic to get us to talk to each other." Shane said. Richie rolled his eyes in annoyance. What else could it have been?

"Alright then." Flynn supplied. "Let's talk."

Silence reigned for a few minutes. No one was comfortable enough to begin the conversation, and they were all on edge due to the immense betrayal that had been employed to lure them into their current situation. Richie felt something swelling however, and did his best to suppress it. Unfortunately, after another ten minutes of sitting in the dark, the Band-Aid over the box he shoved his emotions into shattered.

"Neil and I came back for you after we were released from juvie." He gushed at his sister from across the miniscule space. There was no room to hide, now here to run to, for any of them.

"I know. I ran away about a month before you two were released. Santos told me that you had been arrested, but he never told me what for or the length of your sentences." She answered in forcefully soft and quiet voice. Now was not the time to lose her composure. She never wanted to tell them this way, but it seemed that she wasn't going to have a choice. Kleo wasn't sure what hurt her more; remembering the events that had driven her to flee Los Angeles, or knowing that Lao Ma and Akemi had played a part in getting her down here and forcing those memories up.

"Why did you run? If you had just waited a few more weeks we would have picked you up." Neil said. Kleo laughed.

"Santos wasn't an idiot, and you would never have gotten past the gate. He had pressure sensing pads built into the lawn, security cameras with 5 second rotations every ten feet, and freaking laser point protection on window." She paused here, wondering if the madness that would ensue after she made her next statement would negate the worth in getting it off her chest. "Besides, I couldn't wait another month." She finished even more quietly that she started.

Shane looked up from his shoes, which he had been studying intently as a distraction from the awkward conversation taking place between his two youngest siblings. He focused his gaze on Kleo, who was doing her best to stare them down with a serene expression. He knew that mask too well to be fooled however. Neil and Flynn might believe that what she had just said had lacked implications, but he knew it was a well-intended lie. As he slid his gaze discreetly to Richie, Shane confirmed his suspicion that his youngest brother also knew full well what Kleo had been trying desperately not to imply.

"Wait." Neil said softly. His voice was soft and quiet, but his companions in the oubliette could detect the edge of confusion, fear, and denial in his voice. "What do you mean you 'couldn't wait another month'?"

Kleo felt a wave of nausea wash over her, and something tight wrapped itself around her stomach and coiled around her spine. She desperately wanted to leap up onto her feet and leave them here in the dark, in every sense of the word. A voice in the back of her mind told her they deserved to know, but an even louder voice told her that she couldn't break down like this. Things were different now, and they didn't really want to know what had happened in that mansion.

"Leave it alone guys." Richie said. He inched closer to Kleo, as if he could protect her from her past. He knew it was futile, more likely to make her uncomfortable even, but he remembered that what he had wanted and what he had needed had been polar opposites when he had been raped.

Neil, being a non-confrontational soul, decided to obey his younger brother. Flynn read between the lines to realize that he didn't want any more details, and if it really needed to be discussed, it could wait until a time that they weren't sitting on the cold ground in a dark hole twenty feet below the foundation of a historic chateau. Shane silently fumed as a means of covering up his guilt. He silently asked himself why he hadn't gone back, until he switched tactics and told himself that it was all in the past.

That was a lie though. They all knew that the past could come back at any time to bite you in the ass, kick in you in the head, point and laugh at, and taunt you.

Roughly an hour an hour later, Haresh found himself winding his fingers through Lao Ma's hair while she sat at the vanity table in the room she and her two stepdaughters had been given trying to remove her makeup. He really wasn't used to seeing her like this, painted face and pinned hair.

"If you give me split ends, I will stab you through the liver." She warned him, but she was smiling. He found a strange comfort in the fact that her smile hadn't changed at all over six centuries.

"You've done more for less." He answered with a laugh in his voice.

"She's going to hate me." The former queen of China replied. The pain and worry in her voice was absolutely heart wrenching to hear. Her hands were shaking, and her eyes were glossed with imminent tears.

Haresh took her hand away from the make-up brush she had been nervously fiddling with and guided it to his mouth. He swept his lips across the silky skin on the back of her hand in a kiss reminiscent of the first time he had met her. He and Carter had been staying at the home of one of the Emperor's advisors and had been extended an invitation to the Forbidden City. Carter, of course, had caught sight of a beautiful young woman and had promptly set about trying to get her in bed.

That young woman had been Akemi, the Stepdaughter of one of the Empresses' advisors. Lao Ma had very nearly taken Carter's head for the insult to her daughter's honor, but he had managed to convince her that he was a good son and just lacked discipline. She heartily agreed, and at some point after that they had started flirting, and Akemi and Carter left them alone, sputtering excuses about urgent errands and appointments.

"If you weren't an immortal you would worry yourself to death." He told her. He gave her hand an encouraging squeeze.

"I know she doesn't want to discuss what happened to her, but I helped lure her down there with her brothers." She argued.

"Akemi pushed her into the oubliette, not you." He countered.

"I _allowed_ it to be done, and therefore I am even guiltier!"

Haresh shook his head. He placed his hands on her shoulders and squeezed them lightly, before bending at the waist to lay a kiss on the top of her head.

"You told me that she was intelligent." He said.

"Very." And it was impossible to miss the pride in her voice.

"Then she will realize that is was for her benefit." Haresh reasoned. Lao Ma shook her head in disagreement.

"You don't know that."

"And you won't know anything more than I do until she comes back up here."

Lao Ma grimaced in defeat. She tilted her head back and kissed her long-time fiancé for the first time in six hundred years. She had almost forgotten what his voice sounded like, how his hands felt on her skin.

"Robert asked me if he could make a toast to the renewal of our engagement at the Wedding Banquet." He told her. She smiled at him once more.

"I must discuss it with my daughters Haresh. You know what they mean to me." He nodded, and gave her one more kiss before leaving her alone in the bedroom.

Lao Ma let out a long sigh, and laid down on one of the two beds. She had her own, while Akemi and Kleo shared the other, as they shared most things. It was not going to be a pleasant night. That much was certain.

"I cannot believe you!" Shane growled as he toweled himself off. Steven desperately wanted to laugh or at least smile, but he knew better. As appealing as angry lover appeared in his current state, it was not worth a colossal shouting match that would follow if he let his amusement show.

"You pushed me into a damn hole in the ground, lock me in there, and then shove my siblings down there with me-"

"Actually, Carter took care of Richie, Sean pushed Neil, and Gregor actually talked Flynn into going down there."

"Shut up, that's irrelevant." Shane snapped.

"The ends justify the means." Steven quoted.

"Like hell they do." Shane retorted.

"Look, you talked to your sister, you know where she lives and who with – isn't that what you wanted?" he asked in a soft, gentle voice. He placed his hands atop Shane's shoulders, pulling him as close as his stubborn lover would allow.

"Great, now what Machiavelli?" the younger immortal demanded.

"We live in New York City darling, and so do Gregor and Flynn; it's not as complicated as Sean and Neil living in Paris, and Richie and Carter living in Seacouver."

Shane sighed wearily. He tossed the towel into the laundry hamper, and allowed Steven to lead him towards their bed. He settled into the heat radiating from his lover and cool of the down blanket covering them.

"Maybe you're right." He ceded after a few minutes had passed by in pensive silence.

"Of course I'm right." Steven said with a broad smirk.

"I'm still mad at you though." Shane stated with a very small smile playing across his lips.

The immortal lovers traded smiles and light chuckles before Steven reached over and turned off the bedside lamp. The weekend wasn't turning out quite like they had hoped, but it was far from a catastrophe.


End file.
